


Cults and Robbers

by Your_Friendly_Neighborhood_Lesbian



Category: Original Work
Genre: Don't worry, I don't have it in me to kill my mains, M/M, Minor Character Deaths, Oh, Proceed with caution, This title is experimental don't judge me, and substance abuse, drugs in particular, i'm not really sure what else to tag?, mentions of child abuse, ok, so here we go, there's gonna be some violence so if that ain't you're thing, they ain't all that important
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2019-03-28
Packaged: 2019-08-21 09:56:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16574294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Your_Friendly_Neighborhood_Lesbian/pseuds/Your_Friendly_Neighborhood_Lesbian
Summary: “Listen, it’s one thing to drag me off of the street and interrogate me in the middle of the day, after I’ve already woken up and accepted my eventual death,” Jack Kingston started, tugging at the ropes that kept his hands tied behind his back. He was pretty sure he could get out of them easily enough, as the knots were laughably amateur. The only problem would be getting out undetected with another guy in the room. “It’s an entirely different thing to drag me out of sleeps sweet embrace at two in the goddamn morning, you fucking psychopath.”OrDrug rings, cults, dangerous secrets, and in the middle of it all, a Detective and a thief





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey yo! Ok so it took me a while to get this chapter out. I wrote and re-wrote it literally five times and I kept getting stuck, but, against all odds, it's here! I'm not sure how frequent my upload schedule will be, what with my actual everyday schedule all over the place, but I have the entire story planned out, so they should come relatively (?) frequently. Hope you enjoy!
> 
> This story is multichaptered but for some reason the stupid thing only shows 1/1 chapter until I add another.

“Listen, it’s one thing to drag me off of the street and interrogate me in the middle of the day, after I’ve already woken up and accepted my eventual death,” Jack Kingston started, tugging at the ropes that kept his hands tied behind his back. He was pretty sure he could get out of them easily enough, as the knots were laughably amateur. The only problem would be getting out undetected with another guy in the room. “It’s an entirely different thing to drag me out of sleeps sweet embrace at two in the goddamn morning, you fucking psychopath.”

The man standing across from him - who looked like a Godfather reject, he felt he should add - glared at him, but said nothing. He wasn’t the one who had yanked him so rudely from slumber not but three hours ago, but he was much bulkier and much more intimidating than the bland ass, white bread, cookie cutter gangster that had wrapped a hand around his mouth and practically thrown him out the door into the trunk of a waiting white van. Hey, who said cliches weren’t fun. Jack groaned and rolled his head back against the chair he was poorly tied to. He glanced at the guard, who didn’t seem to give much of a shit about what Jack was doing and he hummed contemplatively. Maybe he could close his eyes and catch a few more z’s if all they were going to be doing was waiting.

Predictably, as soon as the thought crossed his mind, the door to his cell swung open and several tall figures flowed in. There was no other way to describe it, these assholes literally seemed to flow in, their dark cloaks swirling around them like some sort of… he didn’t even know what. The bottoms of their robes completely covered their feet and he wondered how they kept from falling over, especially considering their hoods covered their upper face and what the cloak didn’t reach was shrouded in shadow. Hell, smoke had begun to billow in with them, swirling around Jack’s ankles and curling up the legs of the chair he sat in like a particularly hungry python.

Now, listen, Jack Kingston appreciated dramatic flare as much as any other self respecting gay criminal, but all this seemed just a little overboard, and Jack had once filled a literal bomb with glitter and rigged it to explode as he made his escape from the cops and subsequently collapsed several abandoned buildings and a bridge.

“Ok, whoa, who called in the three witches from Shakespeare's _Hamlet_?” Jack said. The guard rolled his eyes and Jack winced, using the motion to disguise his tugging on the ropes binding his wrists, trying to loosen them. “Yeah, not my best. Unfortunately, I was woken up at _2 in the morning_ so I’m not exactly on top of it.”

Two guesses as to what the response was.

The new arrivals strode forward. There were three in total, and two floated around to his back which consequently put them out of his line of sight, which definitely made Jack antsy, and the third stood tall right in front of him. Slowly, an arm was extended, long, pale fingers reaching for his face, curling out from a billowing sleeve of black and red material like the grasping tentacles of a squid. Jack jerked away, but couldn't get very far considering he was, you know, tied to a chair, and, gently, those thin fingers touched his forehead, just barely, just slightly, and yet all too much and all too deep.

He sucked in a breath, the figure’s skin ice cold and burning in a way no human’s rightfully should, and he felt something in his mind, searching, digging, pulling, invading, and he nearly screamed, biting it back at the last second, the sound choking him, forming a pressure in his throat, just below his Adam’s apple. He couldn’t show weakness, not to his enemies. They would take it and twist it and turn it back on him mercilessly, and he would be ruined.

It was over in seconds that felt like centuries, and the cloaked figure removed its fingers from Jack’s forehead, though they left burning cold pinpricks like brands, backed away, and turned back to the door with a graceful flourish, its compatriots floating to its side. It turned to the guard, who had remained stoic and unyielding throughout the whole process.

“He won’t do alone,” it spoke in a surprisingly human voice, thin and kind of reedy, and at such a complete juxtaposition from the image he (because it was a he, according to the voice) was trying to display it gave Jack whiplash, and he bit his lips hard enough to hurt trying to keep the scream still lodged in his throat from bursting out as nervous, surprised laughter.

The guard nodded, gave Jack one last unimpressed look, and followed the cloaked figures out. The smoke started to dissipate as soon as the door closed, but Jack barely noticed, too busy wriggling out of his bonds to pay attention. Soon enough Jack was on his feet and the ropes were in a pile by the chair legs. He rubbed his sore wrists, rubbing the metal of the bracelet charm that hung there, before letting go and pinching the necklace around his neck in a subconscious, yet no less comforting gesture, and proceeded tiptoed to the door, pressing his ear against it. He didn’t hear anything to suggest they were lingering outside the cell door and when he tried the doorknob, it swung open with nary a creak.

Jack stepped out and glanced around, and had to hold back a loud groan at the sight of a smoke machine next to the door, plugged into the wall. He didn’t, however, hold back an eye roll so intense it gave him a slight headache. Other than the ridiculous special effects machine, his cell was in a fairly barren hallway. It was long, dark, and damp, as all good villain hallways should be. There were flickering lights hanging from the ceiling every couple of feet, and the whole thing gave off a horror movie sort of vibe that Jack was not loving. He had never been good with the horror genre, though he did love Halloween.

Down the left end of the hallway, he could hear voices, low and indistinct, coming from a dimly lit opening, and he figured that was where the creepy ass robed people and the guard had gone. Down the right end was a steel door, light shining just barely through the crack at the bottom. Jack chewed his lips and considered, glancing from one end of the hallway to the other.

One one hand, he wanted out of this creepy ass place immediately. Freedom had been given to him, practically on a silver platter, and he knew all too well how quickly it could be snatched away from him. But on the other hand, he was unbearably curious about the robed figures and why they had kidnapped him from his home at 2 in the morning, only to let him - because he was under no illusions about them not knowing he was out - escape after a couple hours of literally nothing and a seconds long inconclusive search through his psyche.

And he was feeling slightly snubbed about the ‘he won’t do’ comment, so sue him.

So, Jack did what any good horror film protag would do, and he turned in the exact opposite direction from the exit and walked.

Now, Jack was not known as New York’s most notorious thief for nothing. He had stolen countless dollars, priceless artifacts, hell, he had once stolen the crown right off the head of the visiting Duchess of Wales, all without being caught. So sneaking down a badly lit hallway to eavesdrop on strange and possibly dangerous criminals who would probably kill him without a second thought shouldn’t have been as much of a problem as it was.

As it was, however, every single step he took made the floor squeak like he was stepping on thousands of tiny little baby mice, which didn’t make any sense at all and was kind of starting to piss Jack off, because the floor didn’t seem to be made out of a material that should or could squeak in the first place.

He tiptoed across the room, wincing and falling against the walls as quietly as possible whenever another sound was made, cursing out the entire building and the stupid robe people and the stupid guard.

There was a loud exclamation from the voices and Jack froze, not daring to breath as he balanced precariously on the ball of one foot, his hands braced against the wall, fingernails digging into the concrete. The voices continued at a slightly more rushed pace and Jack stood as still as a statue, through the cold walls numbing his hands, and his leg slowly beginning to lose feeling, and getting that staticy feeling in his foot. Finally, after an several heart pounding minutes, Jack relaxed, fairly certain it wasn’t him they had been shouting about.

He placed his foot down and once more crept forward. In a few more steps he was in hearing range of the voices and could just barely peek around the wall and see them. He could see seven people in a fairly large room with a single plain door at the back end, the three robed people, the guard, a new, intimidating beast of a man, and two bodyguards, one tall and one short. The new man was well dressed in a spotless dark suit, his dress shoes polished so severely they glinted like metal. He wore several gold chains around his neck, and rings adorned his pale fingers, each one probably worth more than Jack’s actual life. His blonde hair was slicked back in a style that really completed the whole I’m-a-rich-asshole look and his teeth flashed even in the low light as he growled out commands and complaints at the robed figures, who still hadn’t taken down their hoods like the over dramatic assholes they were.

The guards standing behind who Jack assumed to be the Boss were diametrically opposed in appearance. The shorter was tanner than his compatriot, and was much stockier. The taller of the two was twiggish, but still looked entirely able to hold his own in a fight, and he glanced around the room with tired, lazy eyes. Both had dark hair, the shorter’s black and the taller’s brown, slicked back in a manner similar to their Boss’s. They also wore black suits and obnoxiously shiny shoes, but neither had any jewelry to speak of, unless you count guns as jewelry.

“And another thing! What in the hell were you thinking bringing a criminal into the heart of out operation?!” the boss was hissing, evidently trying to keep his voice down at least somewhat. It was a rough and gravelly voice, scrapping like stones against Jack’s ears. “Do you have any idea what he could do if he found our crates of Mad-Eye? We’d be ruined!”

Jack felt something cold and slimy slide down his spine and pool in his gut. Mad-Eye was a hallucinogenic drug that had exploded in popularity in the past few years. Not an entirely unusual thing to be sure, but Jack knew the name from somewhere else, from a time before he was a criminal, back when he was still just a poor ass Nobody from the buttfuck of Nowhere, still living with his abusive druggie of a mother in a house that was falling apart at the seams, his sister and father gone to the wind.

His mother had been addicted to a very specific kind of drug, one that would give her visions, she claimed in her more sober moments. Visions of specters and demons and, more importantly, of the Devil. She had been half crazed with it even before Jack had decided to leave, and would regularly wake Jack with her wailing and screaming, begging for… something. Something very not good. Something Jack never really cared to figure out.

A month before Jack had skipped town, his mother had begun to bring home books of occult and of spiritualism, gifted to her, she claimed, by people who spoke to the Devil himself, didn’t just see him like she did. Now, don’t get him wrong, he was a fan of the supernatural himself, the belief of ghosts and magic burned into his brain like a brand since the day he was born, but he had always been wary of the occult and black magic. In his mind, the only thing that could come out of that side of spiritualism was death, decay, and destruction, so when he noticed the shift in his mother from crazy druggie to crazy _occult_ druggie, he immediately started to plan his escape. He did not fuck with that shit at _all_. The day before his planned departure, he had heard strange sounds coming from a basement he wasn’t even aware they had. Rhythmic chanting and the sound of drums pounding out a melodic beat, locking in time with his heart. He had crept closer to the door, eased it open, and peeked down. A strange red glow shone up from around the corner that the staircase from view and he could hear his mother, sounding more sober and herself than he had ever experienced.

_“Dark Lord below, accept my offering, accept my heart, my soul, my being. I deliver myself unto you as a sacrifice in blood, in hopes that you shall look upon me and bless my wretched soul and welcome me into your fold.”_

Needless to say, Jack was gone within the hour.

The next day, he heard about a fire that had consumed his old house and turned it into a pile of smoldering ash. Only one body was found, but Jack couldn’t find it in himself to grieve.

And now he had found a drug ring that seemed to operate only with Mad-Eye, and he bet good money the people in the robes were their cover. A drug ring dealing in drugs that made you hallucinate the Devil, fronting as a cult. Jack had to give them props for the irony.

So lost in memory, Jack didn’t hear the response of the robed jackasses, and the slamming of a door jolted him so hard he nearly tipped over, grabbing the wall and his sanity at the last moment. He took a quiet breath and picked his heart up from his knees before peeking back into the room, where now only the robed people stood. The Boss and his guards must have exited from the back door when he wasn’t paying attention.

Jack quickly decided that he seen and heard enough, and started back, heading towards the exit, when a shrill scream echoed from behind him, from inside the room. He whipped around and peaked back in, clasping a hand over his mouth and balking at the sight before him.

A man had been drug out from somewhere, held tightly between two of the cult members. The third stood in front of him, a knife held in his pale hand. The man, who didn’t look like he was older than twenty, was shoved to his knees before him, whimpering and crying, pleas slipping from his mouth like water, pooling at Jack’s feet, wrapping around his ankles and knees, locking him in place as witness to this man’s suffering.

Long, pale fingers curled into his hair, violently twisting and yanking his head back, baring his throat to the robed figures. The figure in front placed a single finger on the delicate skin, traced a swirling pattern with his fingernail, and raised the knife.

“May the Lord Beneath have mercy on your soul,” he said in that thin, reedy voice, and in one deft motion, brought the blade down. Blood splattered across the room and covered the figure’s hand. The others let go of the corpse and the body hit the floor with a sickening thud, resonating to Jack’s core.

The figures raised their hands to the ceiling, but Jack didn’t stick around long enough to find out why.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright! It's up! Sorry for the slight wait, it took forever to get this written. It's a bit shorter than I would have liked, but I think it's ok? But, hey! We meet Alex in this chapter so... Anywho, enjoy!

Detective Alex Cooper loved his job, really. He loved the rush it gave him, he loved uncovering clues and solving crimes, and he loved the satisfied glow of a job well done. He even loved meeting the criminals, no matter how obnoxious some were -- he was looking at you, Jack Kingston.

What he didn’t love, however, was the busy work of punishments, like being forced into the cold case filing room and being forced to organize mountains and mountains of folders, piled up from floor to ceiling, covering the filing cabinets, falling _out_ of the filing cabinets, littering the floor in such a way that made Alex actually have to think about where he was stepping, nervous his feet would slip on one of them and go flying out from underneath him.

Alex closed the door to the file room behind him and sighed heavily, considering the piles of cold cases scattered around the room he was supposed to clean. He pulled a hand down his face and let out a loud groan that he felt rattle in his bones, his eyes already getting achy from all the reading he was going to be stuck doing.

He had ask Zahira for help but the ever kind Karimi-Sinclair had laughed directly in his face, and continued laughing even when her wife Citali had wandered over to investigate. Alexei had given him a sturdy, sympathetic pat on the back in solidarity but had bailed the second Alex opened his mouth to ask for his assistance with some sort of shitty excuse Alex couldn’t even remember. Andy hadn’t even given him the courtesy of an excuse, simply stating that _it was your own fault for ignoring protocol, rushing into a dangerous situation, and knocking the Captain through the window,_ and like, yeah, sure, maybe he shouldn’t have rushed in on a hunch, and maybe he shouldn’t have kicked the door in, but it was a simple mistake! He shouldn’t have to be punished for it! Quinn - excuse him, _Captain Kelly_ \- hadn’t even sustained that bad of injuries! _And_ his hunch was right, the perp _was_ trying to sneak out the backdoor and only Alex’s quick thinking had prevented him from escaping! So he was practically a hero!

Evidently, however, heroism didn’t matter in the eyes of the bureaucracy and a sprained wrist. Captain Kelly had taken him aside, slapped his shoulder and loudly laughed out her praise at his quick thinking in her thick Irish brogue, waving off his apologies with her uninjured hand, but sombered down when Alex asked if this meant he wasn’t getting punished, telling him that even if he had done the right thing, the brass said that punishment for disobeying her direct order to stay outside had to be dealt.

So now here he was, standing in the middle of a file room that looked like a tornado had blown through it, with no help, and several mountain of old cold cases that needed to be looked through and sorted.

“I love my job,” Alex muttered to himself lowly, trying to convince himself of that fact as he picked up the first pile of cases and swept ten more off the small table in the back to set them down and get started. “I love my job, and this is a totally fair punishment because I did disobey direct orders, even if my disobeying was the only thing that kept us from losing the perp.”

He looked down at the first file and read _Unsolved: Missing Shipment of Textbooks_ and tried desperately to keep from screaming or crying or both, swallowing down the desperate sound like a particularly tough lump of chicken. He flipped open the folder and got to work, resting his forehead on his open palm and letting out a gusty sigh that fluttered the few pieces of paper clipped into the folder.

Several hours in, Alex was just about ready to pull out all his hair, even the stuff on his arms and legs. Sure, some of the cases were interesting and cool, like the murder of Kelly Rockfield, or the many mysterious missing persons cases, or that one about the crimes that may have been linked to a drug cartel, but most of them were just petty robberies and vandalism cases, not to mention his back was killing him, practically yelling obscenities from being hunched over a tiny fucking desk for the better part of three hours.

He leaned back on the back legs of his chair and froze for a second when his back let out a series of loud cracks before melting a the instant relief. He groaned, letting the current file fall out of his hand and back onto the floor, the papers only just staying within its confines. He put his hands over his face and let out a moan of despair, loud enough for Sargent Bee Grande, who must have been passing by, to knock on the door and ask if he was ok.

“I’m fine, Bee. Just tired,” he called back, letting his arms dangle at his sides, still leaned back in his chair.

“Well, if you’re sure, sweetheart. Lemme know if ya need anything,” Bee replied, and Alex heard her shoes tapping against the tile floor as she walked away. Alex grinned despite himself. Bee Grande really was a national treasure, an absolutely blessed being, even though Alex was pretty sure she could throw his ass through the wall without breaking a sweat despite being considerably shorter and rounder than him. Then he looked around the room again, his reality crashed back down, and the grin slipped away like water.

He stood and stretched, glancing at the files he still had yet to go through and put away. All things said, he had done a pretty good job, and a flash of accomplishment temporarily burnt through the boredom. The room certainly looked a lot cleaner, most of the files that had been on the floor tucked neatly away, and the one’s there was no room for placed in neat stacks on top of the cabinets. He could actually see the floor now!

Alex sat back down at his temporary desk and picked up the file from the floor, when something caught his eye, just at the corner of the room. He furrowed his eyebrows and the the other folder back on the table carelessly, wandering over to the folder that stuck out half under a filing cabinet. He carefully yanked it out, trying not to rip any of the information. He flipped open the case, the words _Hollowthorn Cult_ written in thick black ink jumping out at him. He pulled the papers - not that there were many - out of the manila folder and spread them out on the desk, eyes jumping from one to another, the words blurring before him, tiny links connecting between the details of other cold case he had just spent hours laboring over and this one over the Hollowthorn cult.

“Holy shit,” he breathed, and he jumped out of his seat and flung himself over to the nearest cabinet, throwing open the drawer and digging desperately through the files until he found the folders he wanted. He yanked them out and held them like trophies, skidding back over to the desk and throwing them down, reading the titles.

_Missing Persons: José Hernandez_

_Missing Persons: Carrie Churchill_

_Missing Persons: Jeff Sents_

He dumped the papers out next to the ones on Hollowthorn and shifted through them again, the details suddenly seeming so much larger and obvious now. Locations, dates, times, it all seemed to link together in some gigantic conspiracy theory.

“Holy _shit_ ,” he said again, and then something in the locations flicked another switch and he lunged forward, across the desk, scooping up the file on the drug cartel. He flipped through those papers, too, and suddenly something clicked in his brain like a gun loading.

" _Holy shit_ ,” he muttered one final time.

They all connected. All of them, the missing persons, the cult, the drug ring. But why? Why, why, why? What could those three have to do with one another. A cult could make a person disappear just as well as drug ring, and just, if not more, inconspicuously - just have it marked up as _cult activity_ \- but what possible connection could a cult and a drug ring have to do with each other? And why would people go missing over it? The drug ring could be supplying drugs to the cult, but, no, drugs seemed to go against the cult’s philosophy… Maybe these people found something out, something that affected both the cult and the ring, but what could possibly affect them both at the same time?

He wasn’t sure how long he mulled it over, fingers laced, staring down at those damned papers, all he knew was that they stared back, mocking him with their perfectly linked details but missing reasoning. It was all circumstantial, nothing he could build a case on, not unless he found some hard evidence, and maybe it was nothing, maybe he was building mountains out of molehills, as they said, but no, he could feel it was something, could feel it in his gut...

A loud knock on the door scared him near out of his wits, and he jumped, banging his knee against the understand of the table with a painful thud. Zahira threw open the door, a manic grin on her dark face, momentarily distracting him from the forming case on his desk and the blooming pain in his knee, because the last time Zahira approached him with that grin was when she had filled the break room with bubbles after filling the coffee machine with bubble soap “just to see what would happen.”

“I’ve come to free you, Alex,” she started, one hand propping her up against the door frame as she lean in at an almost dangerous angle, his trench coat dangling from her other hand, that same sharp smile making Alex awfully nervous. “Because we’ve just got a call, and guess who it is, again.”

“Who?” Alex asked distractedly, half of his brain still trying to pull the strings of those cases back together, and the other half shuffling through anything that could have happened to make Zahira grin like that, and if that thing affected him in any significant way, and with such things weighing on him, he missed the obvious signs that would have warned him in any other situation on exactly what was going to happen before it did.

“Jack Kingston.”

Alex’s head snapped up, eyes wide, mind wiped blank in shock. Zahira’s grin, if possible, widened even further, and Alex jumped up from his chair and stormed past her, snatching his trench coat and slipping it on, the moment fantastic in its perfectly timed dramatics. He stalked forward, Zahira following close behind.

“A team has already been sent out, but I figured you’d want in on the action, considering y’all’s, y’know, history,” Zahira informed him as she grabbed her own jacket, her’s more regulation that his own. It had been a bit of a battle getting them to let him wear his coat, but eventually they just gave up on trying to stop him, and Quinn never seemed to care all that much.

“I’ve been chasing that son of a bitch for three years, Detective Karimi,” Alex said, his almost gleeful tone off putting the heaviness of his words. Zahira snorted.

“I’m aware, Detective Cooper,” she said. “I was there.”

She opened the car door and slid in as Alex took shotgun. They were off as soon as his door was shut, lights flashing as they shot down the speedway, and Alex felt a grin of his own slide over his face before he could even think of stopping it.

The chase was on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, tell me if you liked it in the comments!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Most of this entire chapter is a flashback, to avoid confusion. Tbh, I had an insane amount of fun with this one, so I hope you have an insane amount of fun reading it too! Please forgive any mistakes, I wrote this and edited fairly late at night, so.

**-Eight Years Ago-**

 

Jack Kingston wasn’t exactly sure what to expect when he ran to New York City from his old home in Maine, the smell of smoke and the sounds of chanting chasing him like a pack of wolves, nipping at his heels.

It was big, and it was loud, and it was crowded. Those were his first impressions, and their intensity never seemed lessen, no matter how long he spent wandering around the city, looking for work or for fun. The second thing he noticed was that the air was different here than it was in Maine.

In Maine, everything was sharp and cold, but everywhere, edges were blurred and hazy, and nothing ever seemed to be in focus. The air in Maine hung around him like mist, which was, incidentally, what the weather mostly was where he lived. Misty and cold and cloudy. Sometimes, he loved it. Loved the feeling of cool rain against his face, carried by a snapping breeze, loved the feeling of it in his lungs, crisp and real and grounding. Sometimes, though, he hated it. Sometimes he couldn’t get warm, in a house built for four, but with only one bed occupied, his mother sleeping on the couch or the floor more often than not. In a house with drafty windows and a leaky roof and rotting food. Sometimes the cold and wind was oppressive and the clouds made everything bleak and dreary and sometimes it was too hard to get out of bed in the mornings.

In New York, it was much, much different. In the city, the air hung like a blanket, even in the cold, but the edges of the buildings and of the people seemed sharp enough to cut, like the city had decided it needed to make up for the heavy air with solid shapes and neatly drawn corners and bright, flashing colors. And, much like Maine, Jack simultaneously loved and hated it. The shape of the city made it easier to see where he was going, easier to stay in the moment, easier to wake up and get going in the mornings, and sometimes the heavy air was comforting, grounding, kept his feet on the ground. But sometimes it clogged his throat and choked him and he couldn’t breath and all he wanted was a gasp of cold air, the spray of mist and rain against his face, something to slap him back awake, and sometimes the neatly cut corners made him anxious and troubled, afraid to go out and move, afraid that his own blurred shape would get lost in the endless bustle of people and buildings so tall he felt like he was at the very bottom of a very deep valley.

But Jack made do. He trudged through the bad days like walking through a swamp, he made the most of the good days, and eventually he landed himself a job working at a McDonald's. It didn’t exactly pay well, and every moment working made him want to gouge his own eyes out or boil his head in the deep fryer, but it was fine. Really, it was!

He wandered through those first two years in New York in a daze, just going through the motions, one day to the next. He people watched, because he couldn’t do much else, and that’s when he started to notice it.

Everywhere he went, there were assholes. Obviously. This was not news to him, he knew full well that assholes were like cockroaches: disgusting, endless, and impossible to get rid of. But he had lived in a relatively secluded place in Maine, and didn’t really encounter many people in his day to day, as his school only had about 100-ish people in it, and he kept to himself mostly.

In New York, there were a staggering amount of people, and as such, Jack was being introduced to a staggering amount of assholes. People who mugged others just trying to get home, dickheads harassing women on the street, rich folks who thought they were so high and mighty, even though they were eating at the same shitty McDonald’s as every two-bit, low down, humdrum person they thought themselves so far above.

Jack wasn’t going to lie, it pissed him off. It pissed him off so much that he had to shut up and take whatever asshole behavior they shoved off on him or others like him, poor pieces of shit just trying to make a days salary so they could pay rent. It pissed him off that whenever he tried to fight back, he was the one punished for others actions. He was the one who got the talking to, he was the one who got the verbal whip lashes across his back, while the people who started it walked away scott free, with barely a slap on the wrist to show for what they did.

And, suddenly, it wasn’t fine at all.

 

**-Six Years Ago-**

 

Alex Cooper took a deep breath, drawing in the cool night air. His heart pounding in his chest, but, surprisingly, he wasn’t scared. He was excited.

It was his first time out in the field as an officer - cadet - whatever. He joined the NYPD just months before, at 21, just like his dad, who had long since retired, the grief of losing his wife - Alex’s mom - driving him to terrifying depths. He had pulled through, after far too long, if you asked Alex, who had been forced to step up as the grown up of the household at 11, but he could never bring himself to join the force again.

Alex, on the other hand, was practically chomping at the bit, ready to turn 21 and sign the fuck up, become a protector of the innocent, upholder of the law. When he finally joined, he was ecstatic, but that quickly drained once he realized that he wouldn’t be allowed on the field for a while yet. First came the paperwork.

 _God_ there was so much goddamn paperwork, it nearly drove Alex mad. It wasn’t all bad though. He met Zahira Karimi and her girlfriend Citali Sinclair, and they quickly became fast friends, Citali managing the nigh impossible task of keeping both Alex and Zahira on task like a pro. Honestly, Alex was pretty sure Citali was actually some sort of alien, because the way she managed to get her work done in record speed was nothing short of extra-ordinary.

Bu dun, tiss.

But finally, _finally_ , the day was here! Alex was being taken out to investigate an apparent break-in at a very wealthy, and very prominent business man’s house. Of course, he _technically_ wasn’t supposed to actually engage anyone, and was supposed to hang back and observe the actual officers to get experience, but, like, those were more guidelines than actual rules, right?

Right.

All this and here Alex was, standing on the roof of a supremely luxurious mansion, having completely blown through every protocol set in his way on a hunch, knowing full well that once he was caught, he was going to be stuck on desk duty for literal years, but, god was it worth it, because standing right in front of him, looking very shocked to be caught, was the criminal himself.

Honestly, he wasn’t much to look at, considering. He was shorter than Alex himself, with dark skin, tousled waves of black hair, and bright green eyes, illuminated even in the dim lights that shone from the moon above and the house below. He wore all black, like a proper cat burglar, but around his neck was a short silver necklace with some sort of purple pendent, and around his wrist hung a delicate looking silver bracelet, the metal twisted into letters or shapes Alex couldn’t quite see. A small bag of stolen goods was tied around his waist.

Alex allowed himself a satisfied grin, trying to regulate his breathing, trying not to show how much that sprint up those staircases - seriously, who needed three staircases? - had taken out of him. “Caught you, thief,” he called out.

The criminal raised an eyebrow and glanced around. He was on the edge of the roof, nothing below him except an old tree and flat asphalt, and Alex was sure he wasn’t suicidal enough to actually consider jumping.

The criminal looked back at Alex. “So it seems,” he said, his voice jovial and bright, like he was entirely unconcerned with how the night had turned out. It pissed Alex off, for some reason.

“Alright, turn around, put your hands up,” Alex commanded, wishing he had a gun to point at the other man, just to make his words carry the weight they should have. As it was, they just fell sort of flat, like Alex was a kid, playing Cops and Robbers. The criminal grinned at him, bright and infuriating.

“What’s your name, officer?” He asked. Alex scowled.

“That’s none of your business,” he said. “Now put your hands up. Backup will arrive shortly.” That Alex was sure of, because as soon as they noticed he wasn’t where he was supposed to be, the whole pace would be on lock down, and every inch would be searched. Alex just had to keep the criminal here until that happened.

The criminal shrugged. “Well, I’m Jack Kingston, officer,” he told Alex cheerfully. “And, though this has been quite fun, I’m afraid I have to skedaddle. Have a lovely night, sir!”

And with that, Jack Kingston spun around on one heel, placed a foot on the edge of the roof, and jumped.

Alex lurched forward with a shout, but he was too late. He heard the rustle of leaves, but when he peered over the side of the roof, Jack Kingston had disappeared without a trace.

“What in the…” Alex muttered, bracing his hands on the side of the roof and peering wildly at every shadow, every corner, every nook where Kingston could have vanished into, but he just wasn’t there.

A loud thud from behind him surprised Alex out of his thoughts and he nearly jumped right off the roof after Kingston, spinning around to face the furious rage of his superior officer, who had practically kicked the door down and was storming towards Alex’s with murderous intent.

“What in the hell were you thinking?!” He roared, grabbing Alex by the arm and pulling him to the door.

“I had a hunch, I followed it, and I found the thief!” Alex said right back.

“Oh yeah? Well, where is he?” The officer asked, gesturing to the empty roof with his free arm.

Alex pointed at the side of the roof. “He jumped off! Jumped clean off!”

“Oh, sure he did! And I bet he told you his name too, didn’t he!”

“Well, yeah,” Alex said. “He said it was Jack Kingston.”

The officer scoffed and didn’t bother replying, and Alex was dragged back down into the house. He glanced over his shoulder one last time as he was herded down the stairs and caught a last glimpse of the place where Kingston had stood.

 

________________________________

 

Jack groaned in pain, limping down a back alley clutching his sprained, hopefully not broken, wrist. So maybe jumping off the side of a three story building into a tree to escape capture hadn’t been his smartest idea, but damn if it didn’t work, and he bet he looked pretty badass while it happened.

That didn’t change the fact that he had sprained his ankle and maybe broken his wrist, but, still. At least he had made off with his prize. He grinned widely at the thought of the wealthy dickhead in the house realizing Jack had made off with all of his cutlery and toothbrushes.

And, hey, he had met a new copper, so that was always fun.

The man had been taller than him, with pale skin and hair as black as Jack’s own, and he seemed to be around his age - 21. He couldn’t exactly tell at the distance he was at, but Jack was pretty sure his eyes were brown, or at least some dark shade. He wore the uniform of a cadet, and yet, somehow, he had managed to corner Jack on the roof within ten minutes of arriving.

Jack may actually have to be careful around him.

But, still, he was only a cadet, so Jack was fairly sure he would be seeing too much of him again.

He looked back over his shoulder, and, through the gloom of night, and through the branches of the tree that had aided in his escape, he could just barely see the rooftop he jumped from.

Jack Kingston grinned broadly to himself and limped away, ready to start planning his next heist.

 

**-Three Years Ago-**

 

The plan had been perfectly crafted, perfectly practiced, perfectly executed, and yet here Jack was, sprinting away at full speed, the cops on his trail, and no money in his pocket. What in the hell happened?

He cursed his luck, guessing some sort of silent alarm he didn’t know about had been triggered, alerting the police to his crime. Maybe he had been getting too cocky in his success and this was just the bitter wake up call he had to suffer through to bring him back to earth.

Ugh.

Jack skidded around a corner into a back alley, and he heard an officer behind him shout something to the rest of them. Jack didn’t care and wasn’t looking back. He knew where he was, and he knew that if he continued down this path he would reach a dead end with several fire escapes and dumpsters, and, if he was fast, he could jump up onto one and get to the roof, where he could slip into the building and give them the runaround. Hopefully.

He reached the end of the alley, just as he expected. What he didn’t expect, however, was the shout of “Stop!” from behind him.

How had they caught up so fast?

Jack spun around and faced his pursuer, only to be bitch slapped full in the face by the past.

Tall, black hair, pale skin, brown eyes.

“Holy shit!” Jack shouted, startling the cadet - though he didn’t wear the uniform of a cadet anymore - from the roof. “I remember you!”

“And I remember you jumping clean off a roof in order to avoid capture,” the man replied wryly. His voice was slightly different, deeper, than that night on the roof three years ago. Jack wondered why and how he still remembered what his voice sounded like enough to tell the difference between now and then.

“Man, I didn’t think I was going to see you again,” Jack sighed. “Figures.”

Figures he was the one who answered the call. Figures he was the one who, again, caught Jack. Figures. Just figures.

The man took a step forward and Jack glanced around, looking for any escape routes.

“No roofs for you to jump off of here, pal,” the man said, grinning. “You’re on solid ground here.”

Jack spotted his out: A fire escape, old and rickety enough to collapse under his weight. If he was fast enough, he could climb to a more solid portion and effectively destroy any chance the officer had to follow him long enough to get out the front or back door of the building before he was caught.

Jack bit back a grin, his heart picking up speed. He looked back at the officer.

If he was fast enough…

“You know, I never got your name,” Jack called out. Distract him. Throw him off his rhythm. Thank you, J. J. Bittenbinder, for your wise advice.

The officer gave him a Look, capital L and all.

“Oh, c’mon, you know mine! It’s only fair, sir,” Jack insisted. “I’m getting kind of tired of referring to you as ‘the officer’ in my head.”

The man looked conflicted, lips twisting. Finally, he said, “My name is Detective Alex Cooper.” He said the ‘Detective” part with no small amount of pride.

Jack whistled, subtly shifting his weight, getting ready to sprint for his life to that old fire escape. “Detective! Wow, you were a cadet three years ago. Talk about raising through the ranks, am I right?” He said cheerfully. “Congratulations on the promotion, though.”

Alex looked slightly thrown by the compliment and Jack took his chance, throwing his entire weight forward in a dead sprint. It took Alex just a second too long to react, and by the time he reached for Jack, he was already up the fire escape and stomping on it.

Jack’s prediction was correct and the rusted metal gave one last grating shriek before utterly collapsing, causing Detective Cooper to jump back, cursing a blue streak. Jack laughed a little wildly, his heart thudding against his rib cage like a sledgehammer. He gave Detective Cooper a jaunty wave.

“Better luck next time, Detective,” Jack crowed cheerfully down at him, climbing up to the roof easily, Alex shouting after him all the while.

The rest of the night was a bit of a blur. Jack remembered more running, the thundering of his pulse in his ears, and a feeling filling his whole body, a feeling he couldn’t quiet name, but made him feel as though he could run forever, as though he could fly.

He ended up back in his rinky little apartment, a laugh still bubbling in his chest and throat, a slightly manic smile still stretched across his face. As he fell into bed, his pockets empty, yet feeling as though he had just stolen the world right from under his own feet, one thought crossed his mind before he dropped away into sleep.

_”I hope we meet again, Detective Alex Cooper.”_

 

**-Present Day-**

 

Detective Alex Cooper stepped out of the police cruiser, Detective Karimi (She still used her own last name rather than her legal, hyphenated one, similarly to how Citali still used Sinclair, to avoid confusion) not far behind.

The targeted building was a huge art and history museum called the New York Museum of Fine Arts and History. Well, at least they knew their brand. Alex looked around the building before focusing on the big glass double doors, and he walked confidently towards them, knowing with absolute certainty that Jack Kingston was hidden away inside that building.

He heard Detective Karimi peel off to talk to the other officers posted around the door. Alex saw most of his precinct, including Detective Alexei Ramirez, Detective Andy Lim, and Sargent Bee Grande. Detective Sinclair strode purposefully around the back of the building and walked up to her wife, giving the shorter women a quick kiss before getting down to business.

Alex didn’t bother meeting with them. They knew him, they knew to trust him whenever he went off on his own, especially in cases concerning Kingston. He grasped the cool metal handles of the doors, and he threw them open, striding into the dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, tell me if you liked it!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heyyyyyyy, y'all!
> 
> Ok, I know it's been a long time, and I'm really sorry. I went through a bit of a rough patch, and I started kind of hating everything I wrote, and this story (and pretty much everything) fell to the back burner. It's been kind of a rough couple of months, but I'm feeling better and I'm hoping I'll be able to write more now.
> 
> Once again, I'm really sorry. I lost all my motivation, and I just really feel into a hole.
> 
> Good news, though, this is a longer chapter!

_This isn’t like me_ , Jack thought to himself as he sprinted through the large marble hallways of the museum, the pounding of footsteps on the tile floor not far behind him. He skidded around a corner into the _Polynesian and Oceanic Cultures_ wing, thinking it a shame he couldn’t take his time to truly explore both this section and the museum as a whole. He did love museums, he wasn’t afraid to admit, loved them quiet dearly. Learning the history and folklore and supernatural aspects of different places, well learning in general really, had always been a weakness of his, but that was a completely different long winded rant that he really didn’t have time for.

“Kingston!” Came a very familiar shout from behind him. Jack pushed harder, forcing his legs to cycle even faster, racing through the exibates so fast the walls and collections of preserved history turned into a blur of blue and brown and beige. Normally, Jack loved these near weekly chases that he and Detective Cooper shared. They broke the occasional monotony Jack found himself stuck in and brought a bit of fun and adventure to a tired routine, but right now, Jack wanted nothing more than for Detective Cooper to screw right off so he could go home and try not to think to hard about what he knew until he could better process it. Which may be never, but that was entirely not the point.

To be completely honest, he wasn’t sure what he was doing. Well, no, he knew what he was _doing_ , he was attempting to steal a priceless artifact or two that had been unfairly ripped away from its rightful owners and culture by the greedy hands of old white men who called themselves “collectors”, or whatever bullshit they were spouting. Listen, those assholes had literally killed people to get them, so now nobody could have them. So, no, that wasn’t what he didn’t know. What he didn’t understand was why exactly he was doing it tonight, of all nights, because, as of tonight, the whole plan was spectacularly under planned, as it was literally only three days old. He didn’t have a plan. He didn’t have an out. Honestly, he wasn’t sure how he even _got_ in! He was woefully underprepared and Jack Kingston was _never_ underprepared. Or, at least, he shouldn’t ever have been.

Sure, he had been caught several times (only ever by Detective Cooper, but that was another matter entirely - the man was almost too good at his job), but he had always managed to escape within hours of being captured because he was _always prepared_. So why on earth had he decided to try to break into a very well guarded museum and try to steal artifacts with almost horrifying amounts of security around them without a goddamn plan?!

It was probably, he supposed, because he hadn’t been thinking in the first place. He was trying to drown out the almost constant bombardment of memories that just kept flooding in after he had gotten out of that goddamn cult/drug ring/whatever the fuck hideaway. He was trying to find a way to block out the screams of that man, the splatter of blood, the raspy, reedy voice and the cold, grasping fingers of the lead cultist, the mad ramblings of his mother, the sound of fire--

The point was, he hadn’t been thinking at all, just grasping in the dark for something, anything to distract him, and when he had uncovered his not even half laid plan for another break in, he had jumped on the chance like a starving dog on a piece of fresh, bloodied meat.

And now here he was, sprinting through a museum with Alex fucking Cooper hot on his heels because he was a _goddamn moron_.

He didn’t even know where he was going! He didn’t have blueprints of the museum, and he hadn’t bothered to memorize what little of the layout he had managed to piece together, so he was just turning corners like mad, like throwing spaghetti at a wall and hoping something stuck. Or something. He was a bit too busy trying to avoid capture to think of a “proper” metaphor, so sue him.

Actually, don’t, he was broke.

Jack spotted an exit sign and bolted to it. He turned right out of the Oceanic section and nearly brained himself on a dead end wall, skidding to a stop just in time. His palms slammed against the cool marble with a resounding _smack_ , sending bolts of pain up through his arms and into his shoulders, and Jack cursed under his breath, pressing his forehead to the wall for a short second before pushing off and spinning around, only to come face to face with Detective Cooper himself, and a long hallway behind him.

He closed his eyes briefly and tried not to scream. He turned the wrong damn direction. This should not be happening.

Cooper was taking deep, measured breaths, almost positively trying to hide the fact that he was out of breathe from Jack, futility, he might add. Jack himself didn’t bother trying to hide the way his chest heaved or his own panting. He was exhausted and that mad sprint through the hallways had taken the wind out of him, and he didn’t feel like trying to keep an upper hand he never had. In fact, he didn’t really feel like doing much of anything except collapsing onto the floor and sleeping or crying, whichever came first.

He stepped subtly back until he could not-so-subtly brace himself against the wall and glared at Detective Cooper venomously, his top lip curling every so slightly. The time for throwing up walls was long gone, and, well, fuck it. He had known Cooper for just over six years now, he could handle it. Cooper, for his part, seemed to notice, if his confused eyebrow raise was any indication, but Jack was beyond caring. He was tired, mentally and physically and emotionally, and all he wanted to do was literally anything other than this.

God, why was he here?

“Uh, well,” Cooper started, seemingly thrown by the fact that he had to start the conversation. Or maybe it was the fact Jack was shooting daggers into his skull. Either way, he cleared his throat awkwardly before continuing. “Looks like we’ve reached an impasse, Kingston.”

“So it seems,” Jack gritted out, trying to tamp down his annoyance. Cooper, for all his obnoxious habits, was only doing his job, and he didn’t deserve Jack’s ire, not really. He took a slow, steady breath through his nose, held it for five seconds, and released, trying to imagine all his anger and frustration leaving his body with it. It sort of worked, so he took a few more, until he didn’t feel like clawing his own eyes out anymore.

“Hands up?” Cooper asked. He /asked/. Maybe Jack’s attitude was throwing him off more than expected. Jack sighed and tapped his head gently against the wall behind him. He gave a cursory glance around, but his mind was too muddled to really look for an escape route. He sighed again and raised his hands.

Now Cooper (maybe he should just call him by his first name. This last name thing was more Alex’s thing anyway) really looked confused, and slightly worried it seemed, though Jack was sure he would never admit it.

“Ok, what the hell is going on?” Alex asked suspiciously. He glanced around suspiciously. “Is this some sort of trick? I know you, Kingston, and you never give up this easily.”

Jack shrugged. “No trick, Alex,” he responded. “Lock me up, Detective.”

Alex took a hesitant step forward, then stopped. He seemed conflicted, a thousand different expressions crossing his face, before he settled on determination, or some softer subcategory of determination.

“I can’t do that,” Alex said.

Jack rolled his eyes. “Then let me go,” he sassed, knowing full well what the answer to that would be.

“Can’t do that either.” Bingo.

Jack lowered his hands and groaned. “What do you want from me, Alex? I’m tired, so let’s wrap this up, one way or another.” Jack’s fingers twitched, nerves he wouldn’t admit to sparking down his body. A nasty feeling pooled in his gut and a sudden, nearly overwhelming urge to cry welled up in his throat. The weight of his utter stupidity suddenly crashed down on his shoulders and it took a lot of mental strength to hold it down, shoving it back into a box in the farthest, dustiest, darkest reaches of his mind, and even then he couldn’t stop the shudder that ran through his body, heaving his shoulders up and down.

He hoped Alex didn’t notice, but from the way his eyebrows rose and eyes widened, Jack knew he wouldn’t be so lucky. Alex nodded slowly, reaching up and turning off the headpiece strapped over his ear. Jack watched, confused and too exhausted to try and reach a conclusion.

“Ok, Kingston,” Alex said, holding his hands out, palms forward, like Jack was some sort of wild animal that needed to be calmed. “It’s just you and me now. What’s going on?”

“Why, Detective, if I didn’t know any better I’d think you liked me,” Jack drawled, trying to regain some semblance of control from the rapidly spirling conversation. Alex leveled him with a flat look, but now Jack was on a roll, slowly but surely pulling his cheerful facade back up into place. His momentary lapse of judgment would not be the end of him, no sir. “Oh, c’mon now, Alex, it’s ok, you can admit it! After all, it’s just _you and me_.” He sent his sleezest grin for good measure, and it paid off when Alex let out a long suffering groan, rubbing a hand down his face, pinching his nose for extra effect.

“God, talking to you is more frustrating than that damned cult case,” he muttered, and Jack was pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to hear it, but, well, too fuckin’ bad, Alex.

He felt his blood turn to ice, and any semblance of control he thought he had wrenched back was gone like the money in his bank account. Which is to say, without a trace. There was a sick feeling in his gut, curling like a particularly vengeful snake, and Jack swallowed, mouth dry.

“What cult case?” he asked carefully, trying for cheery indifference and just missing the mark. Alex glanced up at him, and something in his face must have given him away, though he’s not sure what, because he was sure he crafted that mask perfectly as he could.

Goddamn smart, perceptive Detectives.

“What’s it to you?” Alex asked, just as carefully.

“What, I can’t be interested in my dear friend’s job?” He asked, trying to salvage the situation.

“ _You_ can’t be, no,” Alex responded, almost unthinkingly. Jack sent another grin, though he was sure this one was much more brittle, and he was positive Alex notice it.

“Why do you care?” Alex tried again, taking a slow step forward, eyes dark and curious. Jack chewed the inside of his lip and glanced around, trying to force his brain into action, tried to find an escape route. His eyes locked on Alex’s face in front of him, and suddenly it clicked. His escape route was right in front of him. If he could convince Alex he could help him in his case, he could lower his guard enough to make a break for it. And, well, it wasn’t like he was opposed to accidentally actually helping with the minimal knowledge he had.

If Alex and his team were on the case, Jack could rest easy in the knowledge that this cult wouldn’t last long, no matter who they were.

“It matters to me, Alex, because I happened to have been kidnapped right out of my bed by a group of cultist last night,” he said jovially, pushing the involuntary shudder at the reminder of cold hands and splattered blood down. His hands clawed, nails dragging along the stone behind him, and he forced his focus on that feeling instead of the one clawing up his chest and throat with needle sharp talons.

“You were what?” Alex gaped, eyebrows disappearing into his hairline. Jack pushed himself off the wall and into a fully standing position, crossing his arms over his chest, both to finish the look of casual indifference and to help psycosematicaly hold his rapidly beating heart in.

“I was pulled outta bed by the caricature of an upper middle class gangster, tossed in the back of a white van - not a joke, it was an actual white van - and kidnapped into a den filled with cultists,” Jack said deliberately slowly, to give the impression he thought Alex was being dense.

“Jesus -- are you alright?” Alex asked, which struck Jack as a strange thing to be worried about, considering the amount of intel he had, given that he had been inside the cult’s hidey hole. He blinked.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he responded, still slightly blindsided. “Uh, do want to know what I know?”

Alex shook his head slightly, seemingly coming back to himself. “I would not be opposed to it,” he said carefully.

Jack raised an eyebrow. “Weird way to say ‘yes’,” he said. Alex shot him an exasperated look and Jack held up his hands in surrender, trying to figure out how much he should say, what would get him out, and what would get him caught.

“Well, they’re a front for a drug ring that deals specifically in Mad-Eye, for a start,” he began, still running scenarios.

“I suspected as much,” Alex muttered. “Those dates and times matched up to suspiciously for them not to be linked.”

“Times and dates?” Jack asked despite himself. Alex barely glanced up, a hand at him chin, seemingly lost in thought.

“Missing Person cases, all linked to the drug cartel, and now the cult,” he said distractedly. “I need to get you to the station, try to get more information. Maybe Karimi can help…” he trailed off, and Jack felt a jolt of panic shoot through his gut. He needed to pull this conversation back on track, quickly.

“What, you think they’ll believe you? All your evidence is circumstantial,” Jack scoffed, tapping down his desperation, loosely crossing his arms across his chest and rolling his eyes to impart just how much of a stupid idea he thought that was.

“Not with you it isn’t,” Alex said, finally back in the present, it seemed. Jack rolled his eyes again, shaking his head this time, trying to project dismissal.

“And you think they’ll believe the word of a criminal? No, you need solid proof. My word isn’t going to cut it. They’ll think I’m tricking you,” Jack said, a brilliant idea striking him right between the eyes.

“And where, exactly, am I going to get that?” Alex asked sarcastically. Jack grinned at him, all sharp teeth and cunning words.

“I know where their hidey-hole is,” he sing songed, waving a finger around in a circle by his head. “I can take you there, if you like.”

Alex chewer his lip, glancing behind him in consideration. Jack didn’t push it. He knew Alex well enough to know that if he did, Alex would suspect something was up.

Jack just had to get himself and Alex out of the museum. He could lead Alex to the hideout, and then lose him in the streets. If he did that, he could solve to problem in one go: Get the police involved to clear up that stupid cult, which would leave him safer, and he could get away.

He only needed Alex to take the bait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for sticking with me! Please tell me if your enjoyed!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed it, please comment below any thoughts you may have!


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